The public prosecutor requested a one-year suspended prison sentence for the former lawyer, who was tried for ten days before the Court of Justice of the Republic for illegal taking of interests. The decision will be made on November 29.
A minister on borrowed time? Eric Dupond-Moretti will continue to exercise his functions while awaiting the decision of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) which will be rendered on November 29, two weeks after the end of his trial for illegal taking of interests. The public prosecutor requested a one-year suspended prison sentence against the Minister of Justice. Of the 15 judges of the CJR, including 12 parliamentarians from the majority and the opposition, a majority of eight votes is necessary to condemn or release the Minister of Justice, who faces five years in prison, a fine of 500,000 euros and an additional penalty of ineligibility.
For ten days, Eric Dupond-Moretti strived to demonstrate that the prosecution’s accusations were unfounded. No, he did not use his functions as Minister of Justice to settle scores with four magistrates whom he had criticized in public when he was a lawyer, he insisted. The day after the end of the debates, franceinfo summarizes the line of defense observed throughout the hearing by the accused minister.
Offensive to deny any conflict or illegal taking of interests
“Illegitimacy trial”, “intentional trial”, “this trial is an infamy”… From the first day of hearing, Eric Dupond-Moretti denounces his referral to the CJR. Faced with this “test”the Minister of Justice becomes again the lawyer he was for thirty-six years and announces his intention to defend himself “worthily”, “completely” And “firmly”. Although Minister of Justice, he nonetheless remains the former tenor of the bar with a grumpy personality, who grumbles and smiles in an exasperated manner.
During his four hours of interrogation, Eric Dupond-Moretti maintained the same line of defense that he had observed since the start of the case: he denied any situation of conflict of interest and illegal taking of interests. He is accused in two separate cases. The first concerns three magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), who had his fadettes (telephone bills) examined, at the time when he was a lawyer, on the sidelines of the Bismuth affair, linked to the former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy. The second concerns a former investigating judge from Monaco against whom he had, also when he was a lawyer, filed a complaint for violation of the secrecy of the investigation, on behalf of a client, denouncing “cowboy methods”. Eric Dupond-Moretti launched two internal investigations into these magistrates once he became Minister of Justice.
At the hearing, the Minister of Justice brushes aside “desires for revenge” that we want to put on him “in the head”. If he ordered these investigations, it is because the procedures had already been launched by his predecessor Nicole Belloubet and because he trusted “totally” to its administration to make such decisions, which may trigger disciplinary sanctions. But Rémy Heitz, attorney general at the Court of Cassation, who represents the prosecution at this trial, insists: according to him, there is no doubt about the illegal taking of interests. Then the tone rises. “It’s lunar!”exclaims Eric Dupond-Moretti, using one of his favorite expressions.
Angry at the magistrates behind the case
During the trial, Eric Dupond-Moretti found himself confronted by several magistrates. First, the former presidents of the Magistrates’ Union (SM) and the Magistrates’ Union (USM), who filed, at the end of 2020, the complaint at the origin of the investigation for illegal taking of interests. “Nothing I have done has found favor in their eyes”, loses his temper, facing the ex-president of the USM Céline Parisot, the minister, already annoyed by the testimony of his colleague Katia Dubreuil. The two magistrates are heard as witnesses: in a trial before the CJR, there are no civil parties, to their great displeasure.
It is also the immense regret of the magistrates targeted by administrative investigations, who take the stand, under the gilding and ornaments of the vast room of the Paris Court of Appeal. “In a normal court, I would be a victim”declares Patrice Amar, former vice-prosecutor at the PNF. “In this case, it’s very simple, the minister avenged the lawyer”, believes Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss, former deputy prosecutor of the PNF. But the “lessons” magistrates, Eric Dupond-Moretti does not want them. His lawyer Jacqueline Laffont puts a hand on his shoulder, tries to contain him. His client breathes, mumbles, then asks to speak. Without success: the president of the CJR, Dominique Pauthe, prefers to suspend the hearing, so that tempers can calm down.
Little talkative about the charge of former attorney general François Molins
Another magistrate, and not the least, was heard on the fourth day of the trial. François Molins spoke with an offensive tone that the French did not know. The former attorney general at the Court of Cassation, face of the fight against terrorism for several years, took the opportunity of this hearing to respond to the “infamous accusations” which he says he has been subject to since this affair and the appointment of Eric Dupond-Moretti to the Chancellery. “It was said that I would have liked to be a minister instead of the minister!”he gets carried away at the bar.
Denying all “ambition” political, the former prosecutor insists that he was requested in September 2020 by the minister’s office to open a disciplinary procedure before the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM), of which he was then president. Objective, according to François Molins, to protect the Minister of Justice from a situation of “conflict of interest” perfectly identified, by outsourcing the investigation to the magistrates.
During this charge, the defendant remains calmer than usual. Eric Dupond-Moretti is not unaware of the aura of the high magistrate, one of the most well-known and respected figures in French justice. Not responding on the merits and the referral to the CSM, the minister remains on the ground of revenge: “From the start, Mr. Molins has given me a hard time. I don’t know who is the revenger of the two. He criticizes the budget. On penal overpopulation, I didn’t do well, nothing I I did not do well.”
Embarrassed by the double-edged justifications of his political and judicial entourage
Director of cabinet, ministerial advisors, former Prime Minister, magistrates seconded to the Chancellery… For several days, members of the minister’s political and judicial entourage at the time of the events struggled to explain how they had “groped” faced with a situation “unpublished”. If the appointment of a former lawyer Keeper of the Seals is not a first, the personality “cleavage” of Eric Dupond-Moretti, known for his stormy relations with magistrates when he wore the robe, is brought to the stand, sometimes for the defense, sometimes for the prosecution.
“It could be quite violent at times, but once he was a minister, he was in his ministerial clothes”, argues his former chief of staff, according to which the question of the conflict of interest was limited to the feedback of information relating to cases handled by the law firm of Eric Dupond-Moretti. A managed point “immediately”. However, at Matignon and at the Elysée, the PNF affair is indeed flashing. But “person” born “think” immediately to a deportation towards the Prime Minister. We must wait for the complaint from the Anticor association against the Minister of Justice for a decree to be taken in this direction, explains the former head of government Jean Castex at the helm.
Implicitly deploring having been poorly advised, he, the novice minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti attempts a pirouette. He believes that if he had not launched this procedure, he could also have been accused of illegal taking of interests. “Whether I do or I don’t, I’m in the trap.”
Silent after an offensive indictment and the pleadings of his lawyers
In this unprecedented trial, the image of an attorney general petitioning against his supervisory minister will be remembered. “Seeing you there, in civilian clothes among us, who are in dresses, does not please anyone”, concedes Rémy Heitz before engaging in an implacable demonstration, according to him, of the guilt of the Minister of Justice. The high magistrate and his colleague Philippe Lagauche endeavor to demonstrate that the offense of illegal taking of interests is “constituted” from the sole fact that the minister did not abstain or deport “on time” in these cases targeting the four magistrates. Even though “the desire to take revenge” would not necessarily be established.
“A ban has been flouted, a line has been crossed, this cannot go unanswered”asserts Rémy Heitz before requiring a “fair and meaningful sentence”. Sitting at his table, Eric Dupond-Moretti doesn’t say a word.
The next day, his lawyers took turns denouncing “inanity” accusations made against this unusual client “who was, in another life, the pride of [la] profession of lawyer”, “the courtroom artist”. For Jacqueline Laffont and Rémi Lorrain, there needs to be a “moral interest” to prove the illegal taking of interests. However, lawyer Eric Dupond-Moretti has never “made a statement directly aimed at these magistrates”, neither publicly nor in his complaint. Nor did he come across them during his long career in court. And his “enemy number 1 would be the PNF!”they say ironically, pleading for release “of a man wrongly accused and who suffers from it”. Here again, the person concerned remains silent. Invited to speak one last time before the court withdrew, he declared seriously: “I have nothing to add.”